Riesling Rediscovered: Bold, Bright, and DryRiesling is the worldÕs seventh most-planted white wine grape variety and among the fastest growing over the past twenty years. It is a personal favorite of many sommeliers, chefs, and other food and wine professionals for its appealing aromatics, finesse, and minerality; for its uncanny ability to reflect terroir; and for its impressive versatility with cuisines of all types. It is stylistically paradoxical, however. Now usually made dry in most of Europe and Australia, and assumed dry by most German consumers, Riesling is made mostly sweet or lightly sweet in North America and is believed sweet in the American marketplace irrespective of origin. Riesling is thus consequentlyÑbut mistakenlyÑshunned by the mainstream of American wine drinkers, whose tastes and habits have been overwhelmingly dry for two generations. Ê Riesling Rediscovered looks at the present state of dry Riesling across the Northern Hemisphere: where it is grown and made, what models and objectives vintners have in mind, and what parameters of grape growing and winemaking are essential when the goal is a delicious dry wine. John Winthrop Haeger explores the history of Riesling to illuminate how this variety emerged from a crowded field of grape varieties grown widely across northern Europe. Riesling Rediscovered is a comprehensive, current, and accessible overview of what many consider to be the worldÕs finest and most versatile white wine. |
Contents
List of Maps viii 7 RIESLING HABITATS IN WESTERN EUROPE | 81 |
How Is Dry Defined? 13 Box 7d Regions Rieden and 1ötw | 102 |
MAP SECTION FOLLOWS PAGE | 114 |
RIESLING HABITATS IN NORTH AMERICA | 115 |
SWEET AND DRY WINE STYLES 42 | 131 |
Natural Wines? 46 | 147 |
German Rhine Regions | 190 |
Clones 78 | 197 |
ALTO ADIGE | 267 |
EASTERN NORTH AMERICA | 274 |
WESTERN NORTH AMERICA | 298 |
Washington and Oregon | 306 |
Californias Coastal Valleys | 326 |
| 349 | |
| 355 | |
LOWER AUSTRIA | 233 |
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Common terms and phrases
19th century Achleiten acres alcohol Alsace aromatic Berg Blanc blended blocks botrytis bottling casks cellar Chardonnay citrus cool cover crop cuvée dry Riesling dry wines east edge enology entirely Estate Vineyard estate's farmed fermentation Finger Lakes finished wine flavors fruit g/L of residual g/L of sugar Geisenheim German Gewurztraminer grand cru grapes growers Grüner Veltliner harvest hectares Hermannshöhle hill Hunawihr juice kilometers Krems lees ling malolactic meters above sea midpalate minerality Mosel naturally occurring yeasts off-dry parcels percent Pfalz picked Pinot Gris Pinot Noir planted producers racked replanted residual sugar Rheingau RHINE BASIN Ries Riesling program ripen River rootstock Saumagen Schlossberg scion material sea level side skin contact slightly slope soil Spätlese sulfur surface sweet tasted in 2013 temperatures terraces terroir tion topsoil trocken Valley varieties vine rows vines vineyard vineyard-designated vintage vintners viticulture Wachau Weingut winegrowers winemaking winery yard yeast